"Such Wasteful People": Former Employees Of The Super-Wealthy 1% Are Calling Out The Wildest Thing They Ever Saw Their Bosses Do
"His daughter got into three elite private colleges. She couldn't decide between them so he just paid for them all for a year so she could try them each out. She ended up dropping out of all of them."
Whenever I watch a show like Succession about super-rich people, I often find myself wishing I could sit down for a gossipy happy hour afterwards with their employees. Like, you just know the Roys' assistants have THINGS to say, and I personally need to hear it.
Well, recently people who've worked for ridiculously wealthy folks IRL shared some of the wildest things they saw their bosses do. It left me wanting more, so I've rounded up even more stories that show what the lives of the super-rich are really like:
1."A friend who had just started at the local state college was working at a law firm to help pay for it, even after years of savings. One of the attorneys always spoke to her about his daughter who got into three elite private colleges (likely in part due to their ability to pay full price). The daughter couldn't decide between them so he just paid for them all for a year so she could try them each out. She ended up dropping out of all of them."
2."At my first job out of college, I had to drive my boss's Maserati to the Hamptons for him for the weekend and then arrange to pick it up on Monday and drive it back. It never left the hotel parking lot. They never used it."
3."I've nannied for a family of millionaires (he owned the company), and my sole duty was to preoccupy a toddler every morning while the mom went out to shop, get her nails done, hair done, etc. They were young, too, only 32 and 33. Nothing super crazy, but I had no idea some people lived like that! They had zero financial restrictions."
4."Did a catering job at a house that boggled my apartment-raised brain with its opulence. I won't bother with details, but it was truly obscene. I got to chatting with the housekeeper. Apparently, they own nursing homes. That's some evil shit. She told me they once spent $50k building scaffolding outside the house to bring a huge rug in through an upstairs window, just to see how it looked. They didn't like the rug and sent it back. $50k was more than I'd ever made in a year at that time. Just to try out a rug."
5."My sister is a butler for a super wealthy family, and she told me a couple crazy stories. The family once got this super expensive rare breed cat, and a few months later, the wife tells my sister she can feel the cat isn't quite happy in their house so she asks her to take their private jet to drop the cat off in their mansion on Lake Como, Italy so it could spend a holiday in the sun. That same woman would then sometimes berate my sister for buying soap in plastic dispensers instead of just soap bars because it's bad for our planet. They bought this insanely huge super luxurious cabin in one the most expensive ski stations in Switzerland. They realized the cabin (more like a mansion really) right next to theirs was for sale and then bought that one as well just so they wouldn't have close neighbors."
6."I interned a long time ago where we had to clear every single check or credit card charge with a guy's parent because he got conned into joining a cult and the leader kept getting him to piss away his trust fund. Once there were enough checks and balances in place, he got kicked out of the cult for not paying up anymore. I felt bad for the guy; he was actually pretty nice, but his parents just pawned him off on the help while they traveled, and he was an easy mark because the cult made him feel loved."
8."I’ll change a few details to protect the innocent, but I used to give guitar lessons in a very rich area, and the company I worked for had a lot of celebrity and/or just ridiculously rich clients. I saw in-home rivers, elevators, waterfalls, live-in chefs, 40-car garages, fully automated mansions that could 'change the season' indoors, etc. The thing that stood out most to me was the boredom of humanity. Like, one guy I became friends with had 17 off-road vehicles, a house bigger than his Laker-star neighbor (and his Chicago Bull-star neighbor for that matter), and traveled to different extreme game competitions every weekend, but when I came over for the lesson, he just wanted to talk about Nirvana, watch TV, learn Pearl Jam bass riffs, and go to shows."
9."I run my family's business, and we build higher end custom cabinetry. We did some work in a huge new home. The homeowners were moving back to the states from Italy. One day we were putting the final touches on their huge closet, and I notice someone had cut a square-shaped hole in the back of one of our cabinets. I removed the the back of the cabinet only to find stacks of cash behind the cabinet and in the wall. It looked like something out of a movie. The dude also had a $100,000 watch."
10."I used to work for a real estate development company; the boss was the richest guy in town. The second biggest office was given to his wife who did nothing. Her office was entirely bright pink, they put in a private bathroom just for her, her parking space was double wide because she couldn't park straight, and she used employees to run all her personal errands. It was very annoying, but we were told we had to do everything she said. I remember she once asked me to print out a website for her."
11."My brother is a plumber, and his company got a contract to remodel a millionaire's sprawling second home in the English countryside. The scale of this place was unreal; the pipes and boilers in the basement were industrial-sized. Basically, it was such a huge project that it took so long that by the time it was completed, the TVs they'd installed were 'out of date,' so these huge high-spec TVs were all thrown away and new ones installed."
12."I've seen my boss walk into an Audi showroom in NYC and drive off in an R8 (years ago) because: 1) It was frustrating trying to hail a cab and 2) His kid was turning 16 in a couple of months so he was going to buy a car anyways. It's amazing how fast you can drive out with a new car if you're not financing."
13."I was a chauffeur picking up a family in Atherton. All the children had their own iPads, and one child got upset and threw his iPad on the ground, breaking it. Some assistant/nanny went inside and brought out a brand new iPad in the box and gave it to the child. Nothing was said. I despair for the future."
14."Guy had six houses. Hated using computers, only had the most rudimentary knowledge of them. He had a PC in every house, all exactly the same. If we replaced one, we replaced all six to make sure they were always exactly the same. If we installed software on one, we installed it on all six. Made sure all the icons on the desktop were in exactly the same positions, same printers, same mice, same everything, and he’d fly us in the jet to wherever we needed to work on one of the machines. And then on to the other houses, to do the same thing."
15."My dad is currently working as a landscaper for an obscenely rich man. One day, he struck up a conversation with my dad who mentioned he just moved to the area and was saving up for some new basic appliances like a washing machine, etc. Turns out, Mr. Richypants is the type to throw out perfectly good and functional stuff just because a new model comes out — perfectly good furniture gets dumped because his wife saw a dining room set, couch, etc. that she liked better. So, my dad could just take home a washer, a dryer, a new fridge, a dining room table, a BBQ, and basically outfitted his whole place with fancy shit he never thought he'd have just by taking it from the shed of discarded stuff of this rich guy. Most of the stuff isn't even used! Like, all the appliances but the fridge still had the plastic film on it! Such wasteful people."
16."I spent about six months working at a fancy sushi restaurant in London. We would routinely have clients fly in their helpers to collect sushi and fly it back out to Monaco, St. Petersburg, wherever. I used to wonder why I bother recycling my plastic when these clowns are behaving like this."
17."An intern at the accounting firm where I used to work in the mail room got a car dealership as a graduation present. I wouldn't even call the people there super wealthy, but certainly quite wealthy by the standards of my podunk Midwestern state, and beyond anything I could imagine for myself."
18."I worked for a guy who bought a house in a super nice neighborhood and was having all sorts of work done on the house and getting a pool put in. When his neighbors started complaining about the noise and traffic on their street, he bought every house on the street and sold them to his friends and family. Easily spent $5+ million on that solution."
19."I worked onboard an ultra luxury cruise ship. We are talking about $20k on average for two people. Well this family, mother and two daughters, bought the most expensive suite at $80k. I saw them for a split second, and they looked miserable. Literally the first port we landed in they hired a private jet to come pick them up because they said 'there were too many old people on board.' They flew the jet to London to go shopping (guess that is cooler than going to Iceland for 10 days?). Just thought the entire thing was crazy. Here I am struggling to afford anything, and they just pissed $80k away like it was nothing."
20."I deliver pizzas in a certain area that has many very, very wealthy people, and making $4/hour on the road, I'm quite dependent on tips for my wage. I've found that house size directly correlates with tip size; the bigger the house, the less the tip. I'll deliver $100 orders to multimillion-dollar homes where they have enough property to host a festival, horses for days, and a half-mile-long driveway littered with McLarens, and the house itself is on the edge of the delivery radius so it's a 15+ minute drive just to get there, which prevents me from getting back to the store to take another delivery. Then, I get a $3 tip. I despise the rich people in this town."
21."Architect here for some super wealthy clients. When there is a disagreement with their neighbors about what they want to build, sometimes they’ll just hire all the top land use attorneys in town and put them on retainer, just so there’s no one left to represent their opponents."
22."I manage money for wealthy people. A couple of quick anecdotes: I saw a wire for almost $800k go out to buy a new limited edition Lamborghini. Another person had $90M sitting around in cash; client is so wealthy he doesn't care about investing it. With interest rates so high nowadays, he can get over $400k a month in interest."
23."I once worked at a golf course. Someone requested another bucket of balls, and I ran it out to them. They were pulling money out of their wallet, and a $100 bill dropped as they handed me a different $100 bill. They looked down at the money they dropped and said, 'Eh, you can have that, too' without blinking an eye and turned back to his golfing. I made $200 in three minutes because the guy was too lazy to pick up his own $100 bill. I was making $8 an hour at the time."
24."I often do work for the wives of wealthy professionals. The thing that has always stood out to me is that if I tell them that something they want isn't doable, they respond with literal confusion. It isn't anger. It's confusion. They are so unaccustomed to not being given exactly what they want that it's as if they don't understand what is happening when they are told they can't have something."
25."I work with a few very wealthy clients; most of them are very nice, but there is this one guy. I have no idea what he is like because when we are in the house, we are not allowed to even look at him."
26."I had a friend in college that nannied for a very wealthy family. She pulled up in her seven-year-old Honda Civic. The family decided that they couldn’t be seen in the neighborhood with a Honda sitting in the driveway, so they bought her an M3."
27."Worked at a hotel resort which had a condo building on site. The penthouse was owned by a billionaire hedge fund manager. He was very friendly with the staff, and he would invite many of us to his place to hang out. The first time I went to his place, I noticed that there was a very large glass bowl full of cash in the guest bathroom. This is the bathroom that everyone who visited would use, and it was very clearly visible. It was filled with all denominations, easily thousands of dollars. I asked his girlfriend about it later, and she said, 'Oh yeah, that's his trust bowl. He knows exactly how much money is in there, and he counts it after everyone leaves. If there is money missing, he knows he can't trust you. He'll never mention it, but he just won't invite you over next time.'"
